Monthly Archives: December 2014

12/31/14

Watcher’s Council Nominations – Buh Bye 2014 Edition

The Watcher’s Council

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Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday morning.

Council News:

The Council In Action!!

This week, Blazing Cat Fur, The Pirate’s Cove and Doug Ross earned honorable mention status with some great articles.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

To bring something to my attention, simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title and a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address (mandatory, but of course it won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6 PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out on Wednesday morning.

Simple, no?

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let’s see what we have for you this week…

Council Submissions

Honorable Mentions

Non-Council Submissions

Enjoy! And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that! And don’t forget to tune in Friday for the results!

12/30/14

Obama’s Anti-Cop Jihad

By: William Michael
misterchambers

The Protests were Organized for one Specific Purpose – Dead Cops

In December 2012, a respected Egyptian news magazine named six Obama administration officials who were in fact agents of the international terrorist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. They claimed that these individuals had helped change the White House “from a position hostile to Islamic groups and organizations in the world to the largest and most important supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

One of these alleged agents was Imam Mohamed Magid, a Koranic scholar from Sudan. In the Obama administration, Magid was appointed to the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Violence and Extremism working group in 2011. He is on the FBI’s Sikh, Muslim, and Arab advisory board (yes, we have one of those). He has trained and advised personnel affiliated with the FBI and other federal agencies.

Under Obama’s dictates since he entered the Oval Office, the United States government decided to publicly announce a softer approach to countering Islamic terrorism and the ideology behind jihad (i.e., war in the name of Islam). Imam Mohamed Magid has been a centerpiece in Obama’s show of tolerance (of violence) and diversity (of means of death), so much so that he and his organization have been “cited … as the primary means of outreach to the American Muslim community.”

It’s now known that Magid has a remarkable connection to the murderer of two NYPD officers this December.

***

Unlike his approach toward American Muslims, who apparently (at least based on policy since 2009) need the White House to reassure them that they are not “violent extremists,” Barack Hussein Obama’s attitude toward police officers has been hostile from the beginning. Multiple instances mar the six year old administration’s relationship with law enforcement.

The anti-police stance of the administration has been toxically mixed with anti-gun propaganda, and the blatant fanning of racial tensions that have resulted in violence, murder, and even city-wide chaos.

The first example came in July 2009, when Harvard Professor Henry Louis ‘Skip’ Gates was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct by the Cambridge Police department. Sgt. James Crowley saw Gates trying to break into a home, and, not realizing it was actually his own home, arrested Gates. The charges were later dropped by the police, but not before Obama said on national television that the police “acted stupidly,” and further insinuated that the arrest was racially motivated. To make everyone feel better, Obama later held a “beer summit” at the White House, hosting Gates and Crowley in what was presented as some great healing moment. (No word on whether pork or all beef hot dogs were served.)

In 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder, while noting that the number of officers killed in the line of duty jumped 13% that year, blamed the increase on illegal gun ownership. In 2013, Holder went on the record saying that he had to tell his son how to protect himself from the police, because, you guessed it, he’s black. Holder said this talk was family tradition.

For his part, Obama came out in support of the 2011 anti-cop and anarchist movement, Occupy Wall Street, who were not only occupying Wall Street, but terrorizing downtown Manhattan.

Then came the February 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida. Martin was shot by George Zimmerman, as he was being violently assaulted and threatened with death while on neighborhood patrol. In what has become a national tradition, Al Sharpton and Eric Holder descended to prey upon the citizens of a small community, calling for “justice.”

In fact, mob justice is what they were looking for.

The next stop for the Obama, Holder, and Sharpton anti-police racial mob circus was Ferguson, Missouri, following the death of Michael Brown by the gun of a police officer who he was attacking and threatening. The case is familiar and fresh enough in everyone’s minds not have to rehash in any detail. Once again, Obama and the administration issued thinly veiled attacks on the police and insinuated that the officers and the department were racially motivated haters.

The caustic and raw social tumult that ensued led to widespread looting, riots, arson (even by allegedly “peaceful” protestors), and even the murder of a friend one of the trial witnesses.

Obama’s, Holder’s, and Sharpton’s carnival of hate then went prime time, this time to the Big Apple. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. And, with a little help from the all-too-willing Mayor Bill DeBlasio, in the Staten Island death of Eric Garner, which was caused not by bullets but by a lung condition, the carnival got what they were looking for all along: the blood of police officers.

On December 20, 2014, five days before Christmas, Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were assassinated by Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley in their patrol car in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. After weeks of anti-police protests, which explicitly shouted for “dead cops,” Brinsley had bragged to pedestrians just prior to the shooting that he was going to satiate the protestors with their pound of flesh.

***

At this time, you may be asking what Mohamed Magid, the alleged Muslim Brotherhood agent, has to do with the assassination of two NYPD officers. This will be clear to you soon enough. But first it is necessary to understand that the supposedly grassroots protests, in Ferguson and in New York, were anything but organic.

Terresa Monroe-Hamilton at NoisyRoom.net has documented the nefarious players behind the protests, and has an incredible list of organizations involved in the protests. One of the most prominent organizing groups is ANSWER, which stands for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. ANSWER is often found alongside Occupy Wall Street. A little digging into ANSWER’s coalition partners and speakers reveal their roots; groups such as the Muslim Students Association, Free Palestinian Alliance, National Council of Arab Americans, the Nicaragua Network, and Korea Truth Commission (you got me ?).

Furthermore, ANSWER is described by DiscoverTheNetworks as “a principal player in all anti-war and pro-Palestinian demonstrations… ANSWER was formed a few days after 9/11 as a ‘new anti-racism, anti-war, peace and justice’ group and led its first protest just weeks later against the impending US-led attack on Afghanistan.”

To be blunt about it, ANSWER is a pro-jihad front organization that was fully behind Hamas in this summer’s Gaza war. Hamas, it’s noted, is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood – the same Muslim Brotherhood that the Egyptian magazine claimed Mohamed Magid was a member of.

***

Isn’t it odd that a Muslim Brotherhood front group would lead protests in New York City over the accidental death of a black man in the course of an arrest? Last time I was there, Staten Island wasn’t a center of Israeli-Palestinian debate, and there are no public pictures of Eric Garner smoking hookah or riding camels in Giza. On the contrary, Garner was dealing single cigarettes, and tobacco is decisively haram (forbidden) according to Islamic sharia law.

Puzzling, perhaps, but the Facebook page of Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley Muhammad ties the story’s loose ends together. According to his own biography on Facebook, Brinsely-Muhammad “Worked at: Islamic Society of North America.” The Islamic Society of North America, aka ISNA, is headquartered in Plainfield, Indiana. Hmm.

Killer's Facebook page: Obama and Magid are caught red-handed

Who is the President of ISNA, where the cop killer said he worked? That would be Imam Mohamed Magid, Obama’s advisor to DHS and the National Security Council.

Obama himself addressed ISNA’s annual convention in 2013. You can read about one of ISNA’s greatest influences, Pakistani radical Abul A’la Maududi, here.

Here are a few other facts to consider when contemplating that the Obama and Holder-inspired cop killer was, according to himself, employed at the organization of one of Obama’s most trusted security advisors, the Islamic Society of North America.

  • ISNA President and Obama advisor Imam Mohamed Magid was a lecturer at Howard University, teaching courses on the Koran.
  • The Trayvon Martin case only caught on after it was plucked from relative obscurity from a student at Howard University. This student, Kevin Cunningham, began a petition on the website change.org. Said Cunningham, a lawyer, “that’s how I think about life, is to be a social engineer.”
  • Cop killer Brinsley-Muhammad, who additionally may have attended a Brooklyn mosque associated with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, martyred himself by suicide in a subway station before being apprehended by police. He’s no longer with us to answer any questions.
  • In light of Obama’s recent embrace of Communist Cuba, it is worth noting that one of Castro’s last acts as a revolutionary leader was to order the targeted killing of Cuba’s police officers. Why? Police keep law and order on the streets, and because they’re uniformed, they’re easy targets for revolutionaries who thrive off anarchy.

Obama’s six yearlong anti-cop jihad has serious consequences. In 2014, there was an increase of 56% in police killed by guns – 50 officers, compared to 32 in 2013. Since the assassinations in New York, many infractions are going unpunished, as police are reluctant to engage with the community, fearing targeting by assassins and mobs. This is a very tenuous and delicate situation.

It might be worth mentioning, to the next person you bump into who still has a functioning brain, that Obama’s trusted advisor, Imam Mohamed Magid, had the NYPD cop killer as an employee of his nationwide Islamic organization. This, according to his own Facebook bio.

The circumstantial evidence presented above points to a deliberate plan by the administration and the Muslim Brotherhood to stoke violence that led to cop killings. These are revolutionary tactics, creating conditions that lead to chaos, anarchy, and eventually the total dissolution of societal trust. After that occurs, people beg for order, in whatever form it offers itself.

Is 2015 the year of the American Spring? In the New Year, several detailed reports will be published that point to deliberate, witting, and eager cooperation between the Obama administration and the Muslim Brotherhood aimed at precisely this end.

12/30/14

Russian Nativity Play: Jesus, Mary, and Joseph Stalin

The People’s Cube
Red Square

User avatar
What happens to a Christmas play when Joseph Stalin is more known than the biblical Joseph.

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First published in Front Page Magazine
by Oleg Atbashian

This “life imitates the People’s Cube” moment comes from St. Petersburg, Russia. What seems to be a spoof is a legitimate story via RIA Novosti, a Russian news agency. As a historical footnote, Nativity plays are a new concept in Russia, where Joseph Stalin is better known than the biblical Joseph, which occasionally causes Freudian slips like the one below.

A St. Petersburg student mistakenly showed up dressed as Joseph Stalin to the Christmas play where he was supposed to play the biblical character of Joseph.

“Yesterday, my 12-year-old son participated in a school play. He told us ahead of time that he got the role of Joseph Stalin who is talking to some woman. It wasn’t a big surprise to us, as he has played parts in school plays before, and once he was even a watermelon,” wrote the student’s father Fyodor Gavrichenko on his Facebook page.

Gavrichenko said the whole family worked on making the costume – especially the grandmother, who sewed trouser stripes to the pants, found some old army boots, made a generalissimo mustache and a red folder with a big star.

They didn’t realize the mistake until the last moment because the play was in German as part of the boy’s foreign language class, and no one understood what the son’s lines meant. Apparently, the boy hadn’t been paying attention in class either. Instead of bringing the costume to school before the play, he showed the teacher its picture on his cell phone. The teacher thought it was a joke and said that the costume “rocks.”

The family sensed trouble when they saw their son’s classmate dressed as Magi. “Who are you?” asked the Magi. “I’m Mary’s husband… Joseph Stalin,” said the boy. His confidence shaken, the classmate went to the teacher: “Our Joseph turns out to be Stalin… Is that a good thing?” “What?” asked the teacher, as he pulled the curtain revealing the Nativity scene with Joseph and Mary. It was too late to change.

The plot thickened before the drama began. According to the father, Stalin’s outfit was a smash. The boy’s lines were accompanied by fits of hysterical laughter through the tears from other parents, some of whom reportedly fell off their chairs.

Those who can read the original Facebook post in Russian will notice that the father knows as little about the Nativity story as his son, confusing characters and their roles in the story. This is rather a norm in Russia, where erstwhile official atheism is only now being replaced by the official Orthodox Church. This St. Petersburg family couldn’t tell the shepherds from angels even if their son’s play weren’t in German. But at least they’re trying.

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12/30/14

Obama: The Politician Without a Church

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

POLITICO has run a piece citing various claims that President Obama is a practicing Christian of some sort. Nice try. But the article is entirely unconvincing.

Obama isn’t prevented from going to a Christian church and doesn’t cite security reasons for not attending. Instead, he “worries that his presence detracts from other worshippers’ experience,” the publication said. We are told he reads scripture and prays in private.

In 2008, when he first ran for president, the Obama campaign insisted he was a “committed Christian.” Glenn Greenwald, who later became NSA defector Edward Snowden’s mouthpiece, found Obama’s claim so alarming that he wrote an article for Salon about it. Greenwald, whose anti-American outlook includes Muslim sympathies, was apparently deeply concerned that Obama could, in fact, be a committed Christian.

We now understand that Obama’s Christian claim was as phony as his promise, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.”

POLITICO reports that Obama has “attended Sunday services only occasionally, visiting a patchwork of congregations 19 times in all since taking office, according to a POLITICO analysis of White House pool reports.” Further down in the story we learn that “In all, Obama has gone to services on about 6 percent of the Sundays of his presidency and just once on Christmas Day, in 2011, which also happened to be a Sunday.”

Another insight into Obama’s religiosity is when he tries to quote from the Bible or make religious references. He once compared Mary and Joseph to illegal aliens. Even The Washington Post admitted that was false. On another occasion, he said, “The good book says, don’t throw stones in glass houses.” But the Bible has no such quote.

It appears that this man of deep faith, as described by POLITICO, doesn’t even read the “good book” he likes to quote from. So what has he been doing in those private prayer and Bible study sessions?

But the story goes beyond mere hypocrisy.

When questions emerged about Obama’s religious affiliation, in view of his Muslim background, his aides flatly asserted that he was a “practicing Christian” and was “baptized” in the Trinity United Church of Christ. We examined that claim and found it wanting. As we noted at the time, “People see him [Obama] playing golf on Sunday; they don’t see him going to church.”

Obama’s claim to being baptized in the Christian faith is found in his second book, The Audacity of Hope, published in 2006. Obama wrote on page 208, “I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and be baptized.” We argued that what Obama described sounds like a religious experience, but not what Christians regard as baptism.

Obama’s pastor for 20 years, Jeremiah Wright, gave a speech in which he praised Marxism and faulted the media for claiming that communism and Christianity were somehow opposed to one another.

It also turns out that Wright’s church accepted Muslims as members. Wright told author Edward Klein that he “made it comfortable” for Obama to accept Christianity “without having to renounce his Islamic background.”

Obama is now on vacation in Hawaii, and the White House is releasing details about his daily activities. “Like most Americans,” the White House proclaims, “President Obama is a creature of habit.” But church or Bible study doesn’t appear to be on his list of priorities. His activities are said to include:

  • Daily morning workout at the Semper Fit Center at MCBH [Marine Corps Base Hawaii]
  • Golf at the Kaneohe Klipper golf course
  • Golf at the Mid-Pacific Country Club
  • Golf at the Ko’olau Golf Club
  • Golf at the Royal Hawaiian Golf Club
  • Dinner at Alan Wong’s Restaurant
  • Dinner at Nobu Waikiki
  • Dinner at Morimoto Waikiki
  • Visit Punchbowl Cemetery
  • Snorkeling at Hanauma Bay
  • Christmas Day: Visit service members at Anderson Hall
  • New Year’s Eve: Traditional talent show at home
  • Bowling at K-Bay Lanes at MCBH
  • Basketball at MCBH
  • Swim at Pyramid Rock Beach
  • Swim at Bellows Beach
  • Shave Ice at Island Snow in Kailua
  • Hike the Maunawili Falls trail

One writer, Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a self-described heathen, didn’t like the POLITICO story for another reason. He doesn’t even like the topic of Obama’s religiosity being discussed. “It doesn’t matter if Obama goes to church or not,” he wrote. “It doesn’t matter if he is even a Christian, or, as conservatives often charge, a Muslim. In a word, it is nobody’s concern but that of Barack Obama himself.”

Of course, if Obama claims to be a Christian, and the evidence suggests otherwise, it is a significant story. That’s because his alleged Christianity was a factor in his 2008 and 2012 victories.

In 2008, for example, Catholics voted for Obama by a margin of 54-45. In 2012, the margin was 50-48.

Now, with his recognition and bailout of the Castro regime, he can count on Pope Francis being in his corner. It’s quite an achievement for a politician without a church.

12/30/14

Our Weasel Of The Week Nominees – 12/30/14

The Watcher’s Council

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It’s time again for the Watcher’s Council’s ‘Weasel Of The Week’ nominations, where we pick our choices to compete for the Award of the famed Golden Weasel, which is given to a public figure who particularly deserves to be slimed and mocked for his or her dastardly deeds during the week. Every Tuesday morning, tune in for the Weasel of the Week nominations

Here are this weeks’ nominees:

Joshua Williams (St. Louis County PD photo)
‘Peaceful Protester’ Lefty Media Darling And Serial Arsonist Joshua Williams!!

VA Right: I am going to nominate Joshua Williams who had become the poster boy for advocating peaceful protests in Ferguson, MO and was caught torching a Berkeley convenience store last week. So much for peaceful protests.

On Oct. 13, he was photographed walking arm-in-arm with author and activist Cornel West toward the St. Louis University campus where protesters staged a sit-in.

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The Razor: My weasel of the week is the Airline Industry. Since they were bailed out after the 9-11 attacks, the industry as a whole has not shown its gratitude. As the New Yorker notes in Why Airlines Want to Make You Suffer, “The necessity of degrading basic service provides a partial explanation for the fact that, in the past decade, the major airlines have done what they can to make flying basic economy, particularly on longer flights, an intolerable experience.” As someone who has watched the airfares to Europe over the past year, the price of gasoline has fallen by almost 40% while tickets haven’t budged. Just something to remember the next time the industry goes cap-in-hand to Congress seeking more taxpayer cash.

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President of the 57 U.S. States and Fluent Austrian Speaker Barack Hussein Obama!!

The Noisy Room: I nominate Barack Obama this week for his preemptive emptying of Gitmo.

The Obama administration hopes to transfer dozens of detainees from Guantanamo Bay in the next six months as part of a stepped-up effort to reduce the population there, according to a U.S. official.

As many as five detainees are expected to be moved from the detention facility in the next few days, with several more transfers
anticipated in early 2015, the official said on condition of anonymity.

The news comes less than a week after the United States announced it had repatriated four detainees from Guantanamo to Afghanistan leaving 132 detainees at the U.S. naval base in southeastern Cuba.

This is one instance where Obama is transparent. His motives on Cuba had a great deal to do with eliminating Gitmo. Open the gates and free the poor, misunderstood Jihadists. His betrayal of all those who have lost loved ones on 9/11 and in various other terrorist attacks is breathtaking. Anything to support Islam and screw the infidel. Obama is one weasel who stays true to his Muslim roots.

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Wal-Mart. Yes, Wal-Mart!

Nice Deb : It is with deep sadness that I must nominate my beloved Walmart for continuing to fund racial agitator and shake-down artist Al Sharpton whose extreme, race-baiting rhetoric has long contributed to racial hatred and violence for close to 30 years.

The National Legal and Policy Center wrote a letter to Walmart on 12/22 asking them to no longer contribute to Sharpton and his organization, the National Action Network (NAN). As of yet there has been no response from Walmart, which is decidedly craven and dare I say, weaselly of them.

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The Right Planet: In typical Pavlovian fashion, the Huffington Post pins the blame for the execution-style murders of two NYPD officers, PO Rafael Ramos and PO Wenjen Liu, on … wait for it … the NRA! After listening to countless liberal commentators urge people to not blame an entire group, i.e. protesters, on the actions of one deranged individual, Ismaayl Brinsley, in the senseless murder of two NYPD police officers, I predicted it wouldn’t take long before the left blamed the NRA. Well, the HuffPo didn’t let me down … once again proving that you just can’t fix stupid.

Ayala Shapira,11, was seriously injured in a firebomb attack on December 25, 2014 while riding in the car with her father near the West Bank settlement of Maale Shomron. (Photo: courtesy)
Two ‘Palestinian’ Terrorist Cowards TBA

JoshuaPundit: My Weasel Nomination is a little out of the norm since the nominees names haven’t been released yet, although they soon will be. It goes out to two inhabitants of the Samarian village of Azun, near Nablus, a city in the Arab-occupied Area A part of Judea and Samaria.

These brave Arab warriors targeted 11-year-old Ayala Shapira when she was riding in her car with her father and firebombed them. Her father, Avner was lightly injured but Ayala was the main target. She received third degree burns over most of her body and almost died. She’s still in critical condition, and if she lives she will have to have her entire face reconstructed.

The Shin Bet found the perpetrators and they readily confessed, admitting they had received the firebombs from a third party, walked along a road leading from Ma’aleh Shomron to Matan where the Shapiras live and waited by the side of the road for a good target with Israeli plates to pass by. Neither reportedly expressed any remorse for what they had done, which is fairly typical.

Weasel is something of a misnomer here, as it insults weasels. These creatures are something far worse.They are Amalek personified.

Well, there it is! Are these worthy weasels or what? Check back Thursday to see which Weasel walks off with the statuette of shame!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum.

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere and you won’t want to miss it… or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?

12/30/14

Warning From New Zealand: How U.S. Marxists Use ‘Amnesty’ to Create a Socialist ‘One Party State’

By: Trevor Loudon
New Zeal

immigrationreform

In all the debate about President Barack Obama‘s “Executive Amnesty” for illegal aliens, few have discussed the real reason for Obama’s move.

The president has risked huge “political capital” on a very risky and possibly illegal move, that he believes will define his Presidency and secure his legacy with his “Progressive” base.

Obama is simply after the votes. He believes that by legalizing eleven to twenty million “illegals” and eventually giving them the vote, he will turn America into a permanent Democratic Party “one party state.”

Furthermore, the President intends there to be no turning back. As a long time ally of the the Gramsci-loving Marxists of Democratic Socialists of America, Obama understands that his Democratic Party is now controlled by the unions and that the unions are controlled by DSA and other Marxist groups.

He knows there will be no “20 year window” for the Republicans to build their share of the Latino vote. He understands that if the Democrats win the next one or two Presidential elections, the left will use the power of the state to divide and smash their Republican, conservative and Evangelical Christian opposition – forever.

Obama understands, even if the leadership of the GOP doesn’t, that this is not the old Republican/Democrat turnabout game. This is much more like the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948, or the socialization of Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. Obama and his Marxist allies are playing for keeps – and “Amnesty” is one of their main weapons.

Ruy Teixeira

Ruy Teixeira

Ruy Teixeira was a member of Democratic Socialists of America in Madison, Wisconsin back in the 1980s.

He is now a Senior Fellow at the leftist Center for American Progress, as well as a Fellow of the New Politics Institute. He was recently a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he co-directed a joint Brookings-American Enterprise Institute project on political demography and geography.

Teixeira’s book, The Emerging Democratic Majority, written with fellow Marxist John Judis (Scribner, 2002), was the most widely discussed political book of that year. Teixeira’s recent writings include “New Progressive America,” “The Decline of the White Working Class and the Rise of a Mass Upper Middle Class,” “The Politics of Definition” (with John Halpin) and “Back to the Future: The Emerging Democratic Majority Re-emerges” (with Judis).

Despite the Democrat’s “shellacking” in the 2014 mid-terms, Teixeira recently told the Huffington Post that he is very confident that the Democrats can win the Presidency in 2016 and beyond:

Ruy Teixeira, a Democratic demographer, points to a group of states worth 242 electoral votes that the Democratic presidential nominee has won in every election since 1992. Hold them all, and the party is just 28 votes shy of the majority needed to win the White House next time.

Barack Obama twice compiled at least 332 electoral votes by adding wins in most every competitive state. He posted double-digit wins among women, huge margins among voters younger than 30 and historically high marks among blacks and Latinos.

As non-white voters continue to grow as a share of the electorate, a Democratic nominee that roughly holds Obama’s 2012 level of support across all demographic groups would win the national popular vote by about 6 percentage points and coast in the Electoral College, Teixeira estimates.

“Could a Republican win? Sure,” Teixeira said. “But they have to have a lot of different things happen.

Another DSA comrade has been even more explicit on the exploitation of immigrants and “illegals” in the pursuit of an unassailable Democratic majority.

Medina, Chicago DSA meeting 2004

Medina, Chicago DSA meeting 2004

Eliseo Medina was until recently the executive vice – president of the SEIU. After the AFL-CIO was conquered by DSA in 1994-96, he led the charge to get the unions to switch from an anti-“illegal” position to a pro-“Amnesty” policy. Many readers may remember when the unions were constantly calling for increased border security and were always lobbying Congress to increase penalties for businesses caught hiring “illegals.”

Medina speaking

Medina speaking

Why are unions now leading the charge to legalize the “illegals”? Because Eliseo Medina and his DSA comrades worked very hard to make it happen. It took 5 years of hard core lobbying and deal-making, but Medina eventually engineered the AFL-CIO’s policy shift from anti “illegal” to pro-“Amnesty”, which was ratified at the AFL-CIOs national convention in Louisiana 2000.

Before 1994, the AFL-CIO leadership actually cared about the interests of their membership. Now they’re happy to sell their own member’s jobs and conditions down the river. It’s all the about the Revolution comrades!

In recent years, Medina has become the undisputed and very well connected leader of the “Amnesty” movement.

In 2008, Medina was one of several Marxists serving on President Obama’s Latino Advisory Council. He has had ready access to the President ever since and was reportedly personally consulted by the President before Obama started his recent push for “Amnesty.”

In December 2013, when Medina and others fasted 22 days for “Amnesty” in the National Mall, the emaciated Marxist was honored by a personal visit from the President himself.

Obama, Medina, national mall, December 2013

Obama, Medina, National Mall, December 2013

But why does Medina do this? What is the goal?

Medina let the cat out of the bag At the ultra “Progressive” America’s Future Now! conference in Washington, DC on June 2, 2009, where he addressed attendees on the necessity of “comprehensive immigration reform” – the “Progressive’ code for “Amnesty.”

Speaking of Latino voters in the 2008 elections, Medina said “when they voted in November, they voted overwhelmingly for Progressive candidates. Barack Obama got two out of every three voters that showed up.”

So I think there’s two things that matter for the progressive community.

Number one, if we are to expand this electorate to win, the progressive community needs to solidly be on the side of immigrants, that we’ll expand and solidify the progressive coalition for the future…”

When you are in the middle of a fight for your life you will remember who was there with you. And immigrants count on progressives to be able to do that.

Number two.

“We reform the immigration laws, it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters”. Can you imagine if we have, even the same ratio, two out of three?

If we have eight million new voters who care about …… and will be voting. We will be creating a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle…

As Medina is a Marxist and Marxists almost never give up power voluntarily, “a governing coalition for the long term” effectively means a permanent “one party state.”

If America is to survive as a free nation, several things must happen.

The Ted Cruz/patriotic wing of the Republican Party and grass-roots conservatives across the nation must fight every aspect of “Amnesty” tooth and nail until it is defeated. They must become the dominant faction inside the GOP – very quickly.

Existing immigration laws must be strongly enforced, the Southern border must be sealed and other points of entry more effectively policed. Imagine if most Latino “illegals” voted Republican? Obama would have fenced and patrolled the southern border in his first month of office! It can be done, it just takes political will and a ton of guts.

The 20 million plus conservative and Evangelical Christians who are not even registered to vote MUST be mobilized for the 2016 elections and beyond. Ted Cruz and his equally inspiring pastor father, Rafael Cruz, could do this. Pro-“Amnesty” Jeb Bush wouldn’t have a prayer. Neither will the GOP if he is their 2016 Presidential candidate.

Socialists Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren, the unions, the Marxists, Silicon Valley and the Chamber of Commerce/”cheap labor” wing of the Republican Party all want “Amnesty.” The country be damned.

Only the Ted Cruz wing of the GOP, the conservative “grass roots” leaders of “middle America” and the patriotic pastors, the “Black Robed Regiments,” can save the American Republic now.

If America goes down, every Western country will fall. There is nowhere left to run.

For all our sakes, America’s patriots better start working together and get more organized, pretty darned quick.

I for one, have faith that they can.

12/29/14

Did The Saudis And The US Collude In Dropping Oil Prices?

The oil price drop that has dominated the headlines in recent weeks has been framed almost exclusively in terms of oil market economics, with most media outlets blaming Saudi Arabia, through its OPEC Trojan horse, for driving down the price, thus causing serious damage to the world’s major oil exporters – most notably Russia.

While the market explanation is partially true, it is simplistic, and fails to address key geopolitical pressure points in the Middle East.

Oilprice.com looked beyond the headlines for the reason behind the oil price drop, and found that the explanation, while difficult to prove, may revolve around control of oil and gas in the Middle East and the weakening of Russia, Iran and Syria by flooding the market with cheap oil.

The oil weapon

We don’t have to look too far back in history to see Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter and producer, using the oil price to achieve its foreign policy objectives. In 1973, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat convinced Saudi King Faisal to cut production and raise prices, then to go as far as embargoing oil exports, all with the goal of punishing the United States for supporting Israel against the Arab states. It worked. The “oil price shock” quadrupled prices.

It happened again in 1986, when Saudi Arabia-led OPEC allowed prices to drop precipitously, and then in 1990, when the Saudis sent prices plummeting as a way of taking out Russia, which was seen as a threat to their oil supremacy. In 1998, they succeeded. When the oil price was halved from $25 to $12, Russia defaulted on its debt.

The Saudis and other OPEC members have, of course, used the oil price for the obverse effect, that is, suppressing production to keep prices artificially high and member states swimming in “petrodollars”. In 2008, oil peaked at $147 a barrel.

Turning to the current price drop, the Saudis and OPEC have a vested interest in taking out higher-cost competitors, such as US shale oil producers, who will certainly be hurt by the lower price. Even before the price drop, the Saudis were selling their oil to China at a discount. OPEC’s refusal on Nov. 27 to cut production seemed like the baldest evidence yet that the oil price drop was really an oil price war between Saudi Arabia and the US.

However, analysis shows the reasoning is complex, and may go beyond simply taking down the price to gain back lost marketshare.

“What is the reason for the United States and some U.S. allies wanting to drive down the price of oil?” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro asked rhetorically in October. “To harm Russia.”

Many believe the oil price plunge is the result of deliberate and well-planned collusion on the part of the United States and Saudi Arabia to punish Russia and Iran for supporting the murderous Assad regime in Syria.

Punishing Assad and friends

Proponents of this theory point to a Sept. 11 meeting between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Saudi King Abdullah at his palace on the Red Sea. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, it was during that meeting that a deal was hammered out between Kerry and Abdullah. In it, the Saudis would support Syrian airstrikes against Islamic State (ISIS), in exchange for Washington backing the Saudis in toppling Assad.

If in fact a deal was struck, it would make sense, considering the long-simmering rivalry between Saudi Arabia and its chief rival in the region: Iran. By opposing Syria, Abdullah grabs the opportunity to strike a blow against Iran, which he sees as a powerful regional rival due to its nuclear ambitions, its support for militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, and its alliance with Syria, which it provides with weapons and funding. The two nations are also divided by religion, with the majority of Saudis following the Sunni version of Islam, and most Iranians considering themselves Shi’ites.

“The conflict is now a full-blown proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which is playing out across the region,” Reuters reported on Dec. 15. “Both sides increasingly see their rivalry as a winner-take-all conflict: if the Shi’ite Hezbollah gains an upper hand in Lebanon, then the Sunnis of Lebanon—and by extension, their Saudi patrons—lose a round to Iran. If a Shi’ite-led government solidifies its control of Iraq, then Iran will have won another round.”

The Saudis know the Iranians are vulnerable on the oil price. Experts say the country needs $140 a barrel oil to balance its budget; at sub-$60 prices, the Saudis succeed in pressuring Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, possibly containing its nuclear ambitions and making the country more pliable to the West, which has the power to reduce or lift sanctions if Iran cooperates.

Adding credence to this theory, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told a Cabinet meeting earlier this month that the fall in oil prices was “politically motivated” and a “conspiracy against the interests of the region, the Muslim people and the Muslim world.”

Pipeline conspiracy

Some commentators have offered a more conspiratorial theory for the Saudis wanting to get rid of Assad. They point to a 2011 agreement between Syria, Iran and Iraq that would see a pipeline running from the Iranian Port Assalouyeh to Damascus via Iraq. The $10-billion project would take three years to complete and would be fed gas from the South Pars gas field, which Iran shares with Qatar. Iranian officials have said they plan to extend the pipeline to the Mediterranean to supply gas to Europe – in competition with Qatar, the world’s largest LNG exporter.

“The Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline – if it’s ever built – would solidify a predominantly Shi’ite axis through an economic, steel umbilical cord,” wrote Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar.

Global Research, a Canada-based think tank, goes further to suggest that Assad’s refusal in 2009 to allow Qatar to construct a gas pipeline from its North Field through Syria and on to Turkey and the EU, combined with the 2011 pipeline deal, “ignited the full-scale Saudi and Qatari assault on Assad’s power.”

“Today the US-backed wars in Ukraine and in Syria are but two fronts in the same strategic war to cripple Russia and China and to rupture any Eurasian counter-pole to a US-controlled New World Order. In each, control of energy pipelines, this time primarily of natural gas pipelines—from Russia to the EU via Ukraine and from Iran and Syria to the EU via Syria—is the strategic goal,” Global Research wrote in an Oct. 26 post.

Poking the Russian bear

How does Russia play into the oil price drop? As a key ally of Syria, supplying Assad with billions in weaponry, President Vladimir Putin has, along with Iran, found himself targeted by the House of Saud. Putin’s territorial ambitions in the Ukraine have also put him at odds with US President Barack Obama and leaders of the EU, which in May of this year imposed a set of sanctions on Russia.

As has been noted, Saudi Arabia’s manipulation of the oil price has twice targeted Russia. This time, the effects of a low price have hit Moscow especially hard due to sanctions already in place combined with the low ruble. Last week, in an effort to defend its currency, the Bank of Russia raised interest rates to 17 percent. The measure failed, with the ruble dropping another 20 percent, leading to speculation the country could impose capital controls. Meanwhile, Putin took the opportunity in his annual televised address to announce that while the economy is likely to suffer for the next two years and that Russians should brace for a recession, “Our economy will get diversified and oil prices will go back up.”

He may be right, but what will the effect be on Russia of a sustained period of low oil prices? Eric Reguly, writing in The Globe and Mail last Saturday, points out that with foreign exchange reserves at around $400 billion, the Russian state is “in no danger of collapse” even in the event of a deep recession. Reguly predicts the greater threat is to the Russian private sector, which has a debt overhang of some $700 billion.

“This month alone, $30-billion of that amount must be repaid, with another $100-billion coming due next year. The problem is made worse by the economic sanctions, which have made it all but impossible for Russian companies to finance themselves in Western markets,” he writes.

Will it work?

Whether one is a conspiracy theorist or a market theorist, in explaining the oil price drop, it really matters little, for the effect is surely more important than the cause. Putin has already shown himself to be a master player in the chess game of energy politics, so the suggestion that sub-$60 oil will crush the Russian leader has to be met with a healthy degree of skepticism.

Moscow’s decision on Dec. 1 to drop the $45-billion South Stream natural gas pipeline project in favor of a new pipeline deal with Turkey shows Putin’s willingness to circumvent European partners to continue deliveries of natural gas to European countries that depend heavily on Russia for its energy requirements. The deal also puts Turkey squarely in the Russian energy camp at a time when Russia has been alienated by the West.

Of course, the Russian dalliance with China is a key part of Putin’s great Eastern pivot that will keep stoking demand for Russian gas even as the Saudis and OPEC, perhaps with US collusion, keep pumping to hold down the price. The November agreement, that would see Gazprom supply Chinese state oil company CNPC with 30 billion cubic meters of gas per year, builds on an earlier deal to sell China 38 bcm annually in an agreement valued at $400 billion.

As Oilprice.com commented on Sunday, “ongoing projects are soldiering on and Russian oil output is projected to remain unchanged into 2015.”

“Russia will go down with the ship before ceding market share – especially in Asia, where Putin reaffirmed the pivot is real. Saudi Arabia and North America will have to keep pumping as Putin plans to uphold his end in this game of brinksmanship.”

Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Did-The-Saudis-And-The-US-Collude-In-Dropping-Oil-Prices.html

By Andrew Topf of Oilprice.com

12/29/14

None Dare Call It Treason 50 Years Later

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

I recently asked John A. Stormer, author of the 1964 bestseller, None Dare Call It Treason, if he thought President Barack Obama was a Marxist. “He’s two things,” Stormer told me. “Is he a Marxist or is he a Muslim? He is really involved in both of these things. He’s anti-American.”

Obama’s policies have benefited enemies of the U.S. across the spectrum, from Muslim to Marxist. All of these anti-American forces have made dramatic gains under Obama. This means that the situation is far worse for America than when Stormer wrote his seven-million-copy bestseller.

Stormer’s book was described at the time as an exposé of how the U.S. government was ostensibly “fighting” communism with its right hand, while actually aiding, supporting, and promoting communism with its left. The book was self-published at a time when the U.S. was opposing communism in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, but doing business with countries like the Soviet Union, which were supplying the enemy that was killing American soldiers on the battlefield.

The difference now, as we have seen with Obama’s recognition and bailout of the Castro regime in Cuba, is that the U.S. government doesn’t even pretend to be anti-communist anymore. Obama has made the U.S. into a facilitator of international communism.

Our troubles are compounded by the spectacle of “conservatives” who pretend not to grasp what is going on. Columnist George Will writes at National Review that Cuba is a “geopolitical irrelevancy.” He says, “Cuba’s regime, although totalitarian, no longer matters in international politics.”

Will must have missed Vladimir Putin’s visit to Cuba in July, when he had meetings with brothers Raul and Fidel Castro and participated in a ceremony at the Memorial to the Soviet Internationalist Soldier. It is a tribute to Soviet soldiers who were stationed in Cuba in the early 1960s and died there. Putin forgave most of Cuba’s debt to the former Soviet Union.

Before that, in May, investigative reporter Bill Gertz noted that Cuba and Russia “concluded a security deal” aimed at bolstering “intelligence and military ties” between the two countries.

Will must have missed that dispatch.

But Russia isn’t the only U.S adversary that considers Cuba geopolitically relevant.

Toby Westerman, editor of International News Analysis Today, wrote a 2012 column noting that Communist China regards the island of Cuba as “strategically located for the interception of U.S. military and civilian satellite communications,” and that “China’s spy service also cooperates closely with Havana’s own world-class intelligence services.”

Westerman added, “The value Beijing places upon the information acquired via Havana can be seen in the October 2011 visit to the island by General Guo Boxiong, Vice Chairman of China’s Central Military Commission. Guo’s presence in Cuba underscored that China has a special military commitment in addition to a sizable economic investment in Cuba.”

Considering the damage that is being done to the United States, and the failure of “conservative” columnists such as George Will to recognize it, we are reminded that the title of Stormer’s book came from the famous John Harington quotation: “Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

But it gets worse.

Just two days after Obama announced his new Cuba policy, Raul Castro received the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, Dmitry Rogozin, during an official visit to Cuba on the occasion of the 12th Session of the Cuba-Russia Intergovernmental Commission.

Will should be advised that all of this is being covered in the English-language version of the official Cuban Communist Party paper Granma. The information is not a national security secret.

The Cuba-Russia Intergovernmental Commission on economic-trade and scientific-technical collaboration held a meeting designed to “advance tasks and objectives established during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Cuba in July…” The objective, according to Granma, is “to realize agreements in order to increase exchanges in diverse spheres” and “address key areas of interest to both countries.”

While Raul Castro’s talk of a “new economic model” in Cuba has been trumpeted far and wide by the U.S. media, his December 20 speech to the “National Assembly of People’s Power” said this does not mean that capitalism will be tolerated. He said the “guidelines” for the new economy make it clear that “The economic system which will prevail in Cuba will continue to be based on the people’s socialist ownership of the fundamental means of production, governed by the socialist principle of distribution, from each according to his/her capacity to each according to his/her contribution.”

He referred to “the irreversibility of socialism in Cuba.”

To understand the strategic significance of Obama’s change in policy toward the dictatorship in Cuba, Castro said he will be participating in the Seventh Summit of the Americas in Panama City, Panama on April 10-11, 2015. The event is managed by the Organization of American States (OAS), a group that used to be dedicated to promoting democracy in the hemisphere.

How things change.

In January 1962, the OAS was an anti-Communist organization, having established a “Special Consultative Committee on Security Against the Subversive Action of International Communism.” The group declared, “The principles of communism are incompatible with the principles of the inter-American system.”

It passed a resolution declaring, “The present Government of Cuba has identified itself with the principles of Marxist-Leninist ideology, has established a political, economic, and social system based on that doctrine, and accepts military assistance from extra-continental communist powers, including even the threat of military intervention in America on the part of the Soviet Union…”

Nothing has changed over the years, except that Russia has replaced the Soviet Union and international communism has made dramatic gains in the hemisphere.

Another big change, of course, is that the U.S. President is either a Marxist or a Muslim. Take your pick. Perhaps, as Stormer says, anti-American is the best description.

Referring to Republican Senators Rand Paul (KY) and Marco Rubio (FL), Will writes, “As they brawl about Cuba, a geopolitical irrelevancy, neither seems presidential.” But this is the kind of debate that we desperately need to have. It will determine if the U.S. is a force for good or evil in the world. Senator Paul has sided with Obama and Castro. Senator Rubio has come down on the side of freedom.

This debate will not only determine if the Republican Party remains pro-freedom and anti-communist, but whether the United States will stay true to Ronald Reagan’s vision of a world free from communism.

It is troubling, 50 years after the publication of None Dare Call It Treason, that we have to go through this debate all over again—this time with the stakes even higher.

One thing is clear at this point: we need a new generation of conservatives in the media willing to take a stand for freedom, and to conduct a review of the “death of communism.”

12/29/14

Forum: What Are Your Predictions For 2015?

The Watcher’s Council

Every week on Monday morning, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum with short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture or daily living. This week’s question: What Are Your Predictions For 2015?

The Noisy Room:

1. Gitmo will be emptied and closed.
2. The Republicans will facilitate and fund the full implementation of Amnesty.
3. The Republicans will facilitate and fund the full implementation of Obamacare.
4. The Republicans will support and assist Obama with the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
5. Riots and violence will increase across the US and you will see a nationalization by Obama of our police forces.
6. Net Neutrality and censorship will be implemented on the Internet.
7. There will be a stock market correction or crash.
8. Inflation will begin to spiral out of control.
9. The dollar will be replaced as the international monetary standard.
10. Christians and Jews will see increased persecution worldwide.
11. Russia will bring more satellite countries into the fold and will encroach on Europe.
12. ISIS will march on and spread the Caliphate further.
13. China will expand their military.
14. Venezuela will finish going bankrupt.
15. Russia, China and Iran will gain a much bigger toe hold in South America.
16. There will be a rapid rise in the illegal alien influx, cartel violence and border skirmishes.
17. There will be a major terrorist attack in the US.
18. IRS abuses will get even worse in the coming year.
19. Taxation will increase on many fronts.
20. Employment will continue to diminish for Americans and all economic indicators will be further manipulated by the government and become utter fabrications of reality. It will be one aspect of a massive propaganda blitz by the US government to keep Americans docile.

My last prediction is that I will not be invited to any cocktail parties as I can clear a room in 10 seconds flat. 😉

The Right Planet: I’m not really one to make predictions, since I always seem to be wrong. But, I’ll take a stab at it …

  • The national debt will continue to skyrocket (as always) and nothing will be done about it.
  • Obama will continue his racial agitation, despite the fact he’s the first “black” president in U.S. history who promised a “post-racial” America.
  • The radical left will continue to search for the next Michael Brown in order to in order to whip even more racial animus.
  • Obama will continue to dismantle the military.
  • The GOP establishment will do nothing to stop Obamacare, despite campaign promises to the contrary.
  • Another massive new wave of illegal immigrants.
  • The GOP establishment will continue to push presidential candidates like Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney, despite the base’s lack of enthusiasm for these establishment types.
  • The left will push for Marxist radicals like Elizabeth Warren as their next presidential candidate in 2016.
  • Despite the fact the GOP won a major victory in the 2014 midterms, they’ll still act like they lost.
  • Obama will unleash the most radical agenda ever seen in the history of the United States, because he feels he’s got nothing to lose.

Sorry, I think it’s going to be a sh*tty year for the USA. And I think it’s only going to get worse.

Laura Rambeau Lee at Right Reason: 2015 is shaping up to be a defining year for America. Lame duck President Obama will continue to push through executive orders, further undermining the balance of power and the rule of law. Even with Republican majorities in the House and Senate, I don’t see them effectively challenging him. One or two will speak out, but will be vilified as radical right extremists by the left and also by the establishment GOP.

I am afraid the events at the end of 2014, with thousands of people protesting against the police in Ferguson, MO and New York, are a precursor of things to come in 2015. The left will continue its agenda of dividing our country by race, religion, class, and cries for social justice.

As we head into the 2016 election season, younger voters will become involved in the political races based on social issues, such as same sex marriage and the legalization of marijuana and align themselves with Democrat candidates or Libertarians. Conservative Republicans will need to find a strong voice who will speak out for fiscal restraint, smaller government, and traditional values, or we can expect to see Jeb Bush being propped up as the frontrunner.

As the world continues to become more dangerous, we will be drawing down our military and will be unable and unwilling to get involved.

While we have seen a little improvement in the job market and the economy, as new regulations roll out expect small businesses to take a bigger hit and many will close their doors for good. The cost of doing business in this country has become punitive for the average small business owner.

I hope I am wrong and the Republican led Congress will work towards gutting Obamacare, cutting punitive regulations from the EPA and CFPB to name a couple, and not approving any funding for Obama’s illegal amnesty action, but I just don’t see it happening.

JoshuaPundit: Hmmm… OK, domestic politics.  I’m not prepared to predict how the new congress will behave, but I will say that if it simply becomes business as usual, you will see a major revolt by the Republican Party base to the extent where we may end up with a third party that ultimately replaces it. That’s almost certain if the GOP leadership tries to foist someone like Jeb Bush on the party as a presidential nominee. I actually expect the new Congress to attack some areas, like EPA regulations that restrict coal. And don’t be surprised if you see increased opposition to the president’s amnesty bill, especially when it comes to attacking its funding. It was the one area Boehner left open, not because he wanted to, but because he had to give the conservatives in Congress something in order to get votes to pass cromnibus in the House.

Don’t be surprised if the Supremes gut ObamaCare. What will happen after that is anyone’s guess, since the health insurance industry has been monkeyed with almost beyond repair and will take some time to come back.

I also predict that we will see increased tension between the president and the new Congress, especially when it comes to his appointments, investigation of the various scandals surrounding the White House, his amnesty and the funding of certain presidential executive orders.

I think the GOP nomination will boil down to a choice between Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee and Jeb Bush. I don’t think Dr. Carson will run in 2016, nor will Ted Cruz as much as I ‘d like to see him do so, but I’m happy to be wrong on that one. Either one may end up as VP candidates.

I see the chances of Hillary Clinton running as no more than 50-50, because of her health, her unpopularity with the party’s far Left progressives  and because of continued revelations on how horribly she ran the State Department, including the Benghazi fiasco. Elizabeth Warren is a more likely choice, I think.

Other domestic predictions; I regret to say that I think we’re headed for a major terrorism attack, along with a huge scandal concerning our domestic intel setup. I see it as being an attack that the media will attempt to paint as being carried out by a so-called ‘lone wolf’, but will in reality be one aided and abetted by our overseas enemies, just like 9/11 was. I hope I’m wrong on that one.

The economy will continue about how it’s been, but probably with slightly higher interest rates come midyear. The economy is a colossal con, with real unemployment and real CPI inflation far higher and our growth and GDP far lower than we’re being told, but so far we remain the best game in town in terms of relatively safe foreign investment. The reckoning will come in very gradual stages after Obama is safely out of office.

Baseball will have a resurgence next year. This year was about getting rid of the stench of the steroids scandal.

Foreign Affairs; We will continue to flail around in Iraq, with this president gradually increasing troops on the ground. His real objective is to have Iran doing more of the fighting against the Islamic State, with the result, of course, that Iran will control Iraq as part of the nuclear armed Shi’ite bloc they wish to create. 2015 will also likely be the year that Iran explodes a successful nuclear weapon unless Israel stops them. Obama will not.

Syria may well see a cease fire and an arrangement between Assad and IS to share the country, midwifed by Putin. The way things are now, neither side can win, but both sides need time to consolidate their gains and lick their wounds.

Israel will continue its move to the right politically, with Naftali Bennett continuing to rise in popularity. Israel will continue to expand its increasingly closer ties with India, China and East Asia. The EU will continue to become more hostile to Israel, perhaps even to the point of sanctions by countries like Ireland, the UK (at least in the short run), Spain, Portugal,  Scandinavia, Belgium, the Netherlands and France. Other countries like Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy, the Balkan states and other eastern European countries will simply ignore any sanctions.

While the Obama Administration will likely veto the current UNSC resolution to unilaterally force a Palestinian state by the Palestinian Authority, the Obama regime will almost certainly abstain and allow another one to pass if it’s put before the UNSC after the Israeli elections in March. The Obama team is attempting to interfere in the Israeli elections to get the Left wing Labor Party elected and they will want to see if they can mange it before taking the political flak of allowing a UN diktat to pass… which would be opposed vociferously by Congress.

Of course, once that happens, the relationship between America and Israel is going to change quite a bit, which was what this president has wanted all along. Since getting Labor/Hatnua elected with enough seats to form a governing coalition is highly unlikely, I think that scenario is what we’re ultimately looking at. Expect continued terrorist attacks on Israel in this current Third Intifada, which will be followed by a major crackdown boo-hooed by all the usual suspects.

Russia will likely attempt to assert its authority over one or more of the Baltic States… not by invasion, but by simple intimidation ala’ Finland. I’d say Estonia is the most likely target.

Japan and  Australia will rearm and increase their defense spending.They will also increase their security cooperation, which will likely include Vietnam and the Philippines. Germany will do the same; expect for an enlargement of the Bundeswehr and security coordination with its neighbors like Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

Expect UKip to do exceptionally well in the British Elections. And while French elections aren’t until 2017, unless the socialists and the extremely unpopular Hollande is forced out, expect Marine Le Pen’s right leaning Front National (FN) to continue to gain massive ground.

Rhymes With Right: Well, my friends, after having had a mixed year making projections for 2014, I’m once again at it. I’ll once again stare into that foggy crystal ball and catch a glimpse into the future — undoubtedly with mixed results. Each of my four categories will have a prediction that I feel is almost certain to come true, one I feel is somewhat more iffy, but still probable, and one that is a long-shot and will in twelve months be seen either as prophetic genius or utter folly.

World Affairs

  • Safe Prediction — Benjamin Netanyahu will remain Prime Minister of Israel following a challenge by a more secular and more leftist coalition. The reason for his success — which will not be expected only weeks prior to new elections — will be a renewed campaign of terrorist attacks on civilians in the wake of the UN recognition of a “State of Palestine”.
  • Not-So-Safe Prediction — Continued North Korean anger over The Interview will lead to more attacks on the American entertainment industry. The target? Online streaming services renting/selling The Interview and Team America: World Police.
  • Long-Shot Prediction — King Abdullah of Jordan is overthrown in an Islamist coup.

National Affairs

  • Safe Prediction — Barack Obama will continue to govern using the same playbook as the late Hugo Chavez, issuing executive decrees and usurping Congress’ lawmaking role despite the restrictions on executive power contained in the Constitution.
  • Not-So-Safe Prediction — There will be an unexpected resignation from the Supreme Court at the end of the 2014-2015 term. This will set the stage for a major confirmation fight and, after the rejection of Obama’s nominee, an effort by the President to make a recess appointment to the High Court.
  • Long-Shot Prediction — A bipartisan immigration reform bill will be passed by both houses of Congress and be signed by the president. It will have broad support among the American people, but will be rejected by both the progressive wing of the Democrat Party and conservative wing of the Republican Party in Congress.

Texas Affairs

  • Safe Prediction — Despite strong opposition by the grassroots, Joe Straus is again selected as Speaker of the House in the Texas Legislature. When the filing date for the 2016 primary passes in December, a record number of well-funded conservative challengers will have filed to run against incumbent legislators in the Republican primary.
  • Not-So-Safe Predictions — The resignation of Steve Munisteri as Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas will result in the election of Tom Mechler by the State Republican Executive Committee. The selection of the current RPT treasurer will be more about interim stability than the long-term direction of the state party, with everyone looking toward a major floor fight at the 2016 convention between former Harris County GOP chairman Jared Woodfill and Dallas County chairman Wade Emmert in which the grassroots will make their voices heard.
  • Long-Shot Prediction — Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick surprises political observers by being an even-handed consensus builder as the presiding officer over the Texas Senate.

2016 Presidential Politics

  • Safe Prediction — As 2015 ends, the GOP will have a spirited race for the presidential nomination underway, with the leading contenders being Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Rand Paul, followed by Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal and Paul Ryan.
  • Not-So-Safe Prediction — Chris Christie does not seek the Republican presidential nomination.
  • Long-Shot Prediction — As 2015 ends, the Hillary Clinton juggernaut faces unexpected difficulties in the race for the Democrat presidential nomination. These will come in the form of leaked documents from Hillary’s time as Secretary of State, a new Bill Clinton sex scandal that raises questions about Hillary’s sensitivity to women alleging sexual abuse/assault and an unexpectedly strong challenger from the Left.

The Glittering Eye: For many years at The Glittering Eye I would do an annual predictions post. Last year I gave up the practice. It wasn’t because my track record wasn’t pretty good — it was around 85% right — but because like everybody else I never managed to predict the really big stories of the year.

However, I’ll get into the spirit of things and give you one prediction. The Supreme Court will decide in favor of the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell with a vote of 5-4, Justice Kennedy concurring with the majority. That’s the case challenging the paying of federal subsidies to individuals who live in states that did not set up their own healthcare insurance exchanges.

Well, there you have it! Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum and every Tuesday morning, when we reveal the week’s nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council and the results are posted on Friday morning. It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere and you won’t want to miss it… or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

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